‘Them!’ said the man in black; ‘why, they might serve as models in the dirty trade to all the rest who practise it. See how they bepraise their patrons, the grand Whig nobility, who hope, by raising the cry of liberalism and by putting themselves at the head of the populace, to come into power shortly. I don’t wish to be hard, at present, upon those Whigs,’ he continued, ‘for they are playing our game; but a time will come when, not wanting them, we will kick them to a considerable distance: and then, when toleration is no longer the cry, and the Whigs are no longer backed by the populace, see whether the editors of the - will stand by them; they will prove themselves as expert lickspittles of despotism as of liberalism. Don’t think they will always bespatter the Tories and Austria.’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘I am sorry to find that you entertain so low an opinion of the spirit of English literary men; we will now return, if you please, to the subject of the middle classes; I think your strictures upon them in general are rather too sweeping - they are not altogether the foolish people which you have described. Look, for example, at that very powerful and numerous body the Dissenters, the descendants of those sturdy Patriots who hurled Charles the Simple from his throne.’

‘There are some sturdy fellows amongst them, I do not deny,’ said the man in black, ‘especially amongst the preachers, clever withal - two or three of that class nearly drove Mr. Platitude mad, as perhaps you are aware, but they are not very numerous; and the old sturdy sort of preachers are fast dropping off, and, as we observe with pleasure, are generally succeeded by frothy coxcombs, whom it would not be very difficult to gain over. But what we most rely upon as an instrument to bring the Dissenters over to us is the mania for gentility, which amongst them has of late become as great, and more ridiculous than amongst the middle classes belonging to the Church of England. All the plain and simple fashions of their forefathers they are either about to abandon, or have already done so. Look at the most part of their chapels - no longer modest brick edifices, situated in quiet and retired streets, but lunatic-looking erections, in what the simpletons call the modern Gothic taste, of Portland stone, with a cross upon the top, and the site generally the most conspicuous that can be found. And look at the manner in which they educate their children - I mean those that are wealthy. They do not even wish them to be Dissenters - "the sweet dears shall enjoy the advantages of good society, of which their parents were debarred." So the girls are sent to tip-top boarding-schools, where amongst other trash they read ROKEBY, and are taught to sing snatches from that high-flying ditty, the "Cavalier" -

he! he! their own names. Whilst the lads are sent to those hotbeds of pride and folly - colleges, whence they return with a greater contempt for everything "low," and especially for their own pedigree, than they went with. I tell you, friend, the children of Dissenters, if not their parents, are going over to the Church, as you call it, and the Church is going over to Rome.’

‘I do not see the justice of that latter assertion at all,’ said I; ‘some of the Dissenters’ children may be coming over to the Church of England, and yet the Church of England be very far from going over to Rome.’

‘In the high road for it, I assure you,’ said the man in black; ‘part of it is going to abandon, the rest to lose their prerogative, and when a Church no longer retains its prerogative, it speedily loses its own respect, and that of others.’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘if the higher classes have all the vices and follies which you represent, on which point I can say nothing, as I have never mixed with them; and even supposing the middle classes are the foolish beings you would fain make them, and which I do not believe them as a body to be, you would still find some resistance amongst the lower classes: I have a considerable respect for their good sense and independence of character; but pray let me hear your opinion of them.’

‘As for the lower classes,’ said the man in black, ‘I believe them to be the most brutal wretches in the world, the most addicted to foul feeding, foul language, and foul vices of every kind; wretches who have